American clergyman (1813-1887)
Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note, torn in two and burned up, so that it never can be shown against the man.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues. God made a million spears of grass where he made one tree. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero nor a saint.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few stopping places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Lectures to Young Men on Various Important Subjects
It is not when the cable lies coiled up on the deck that you know how strong or how weak it is; it is when it is put to the test.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
People may talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal. The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman will vanquish ten men.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
It is only God who can satisfy the soul.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Adversity is the mint in which God stamps upon man his image and superscription.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Christians! It is your duty not only to be good, but to shine; and, of all the lights which you kindle on the face, Joy will reach farthest out to sea, where troubled mariners are seeking the shore.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvests and food.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
It is not desirable that we should live as in the constant atmosphere and presence of death; that would unfit us for life; but it is well for us, now and then, to talk with death as friend talketh with friend, and to bathe in the strange seas, and to anticipate the experiences of that land to which it will lead us. These forethinkings are meant, not to make us discontented with life, but to bring us back with more strength, and a nobler purpose in living.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Summer's morning wakes with a ring of birds, and everything is as distinctly cut as if it stood in heaven and not on earth.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
attributed, Day's Collacon
To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
It is the sum of the million little unconscious dispositions that go to make life joyful or painful.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
What are called "fanatics" and "extremists" are only the men that God sends to make up the general average which the unfaithfulness of others lowers.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
If one could wallow amid filth for half a life and then wash himself clean in a day, then sin would be no worse than dirt on the hands which water can cleanse in a minute. Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Many people keep their old sins warm while they go to try on virtue and see if they like it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
There ought to be such an atmosphere in every Christian church, that a man going there and sitting two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and carry home a fire to kindle the altar whence he came.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts